The history of The Raleigh Cycle Co offers an excellent insight into the history of cycle manufacturing in Great Britain. And for those of us who collect ‘old black bikes’ Raleigh provided a wonderful supply and variety. A Raleigh Superbe is surely the most practical vintage bicycle to own and use on a regular basis.

Comprehensive records of Raleigh frame numbers is another very useful factor: you can check the age of your Raleigh at the bottom of this page.

The list below is one I’ve used over the years, when buying vintage bicycles, to remember when those companies were still ‘original’ before being taken over by Raleigh:

Humber 1932

Rudge-Whitworth 1943

Triumph 1954

Three Spires 1954

BSA , New Hudson, Sunbeam 1957

Phillips 1960

Hercules 1960

Norman 1960

Sun 1960

Carlton 1960

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Raleigh Street, Nottingham, was the site of a small workshop which in 1886 started producing diamond-frame safety bicycles at the rate of three a week. Frank Bowden, a successful lawyer and convert to cycling, bought the firm in 1887 and in December 1888 founded The Raleigh Cycle Company as a limited liability private company. It grew rapidly and within a few years was a large public company capitalised at £100,000 (equivalent to about £5m today).

In 1902, Sturmey-Archer gears were added to the product range. Six years later, Bowden bought back Raleigh, which was to remain in family hands for the next quarter century. By the early 1920s, Raleigh was a world leader, capable of producing annually 100,000 cycles, 250,000 hub gears 15,000 motorcycles and 50,000 motorcycle gearboxes.

Raleigh survived the Great Depression well. It acquired Humber cycles in 1932 and the following year started producing a three-wheeler car. In 1934 Raleigh reverted to public company status, as Raleigh Cycle Holdings Ltd, with a share issue of more than £2m (= about £65m today). By 1938, its production of bicycles had grown to nearly 500,000 units per annum and the company had stopped making motorcycles and cars.

During the Second World War (1939-45), Raleigh concentrated on munitions work. The name of its budget range, launched in 1938 as Gazelle, was changed to Robin Hood, and Raleigh acquired Rudge-Whitworth.
After the war, despite shortages of fuel and steel, Raleigh’s cycle production rose rapidly. By 1949, it had reached about 750,000, the majority of which was exported.

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In 1951, Raleigh produced more than a million cycles. But between 1950 and 1962, as increasingly prosperous consumers abandoned the cycle in favour of the car, cycle sales in the UK halved. This led Raleigh in 1958 to resume moped production and later to launch a motor scooter. More significantly, during this period Raleigh acquired two major rival groups: Triumph and Three Spires in 1954, and BSA (including New Hudson and Sunbeam) in 1957.

Raleigh itself was then taken over by Tube Investments (TI), whose British Cycle Corporation owned Phillips, Hercules, Norman and Sun. The effect of these mergers was that Raleigh’s sales figures showed a slight upward trend during most of the 1950s.The TI take-over followed a collaborative venture with Raleigh in South Africa. In 1960, TI bought all Raleigh shares, then handed over the British Cycle Corporation to Raleigh management. Suddenly, TI-Raleigh had 75% of the UK market. Unfortunately, it was a market that was rapidly shrinking.

In spring 1960 Raleigh, having stopped making quality lightweight cycles at Nottingham, bought Carlton Cycles, a respected hand-built racing cycle specialist company based nearby at Worksop.
Raleigh urgently needed to increase volume sales to the man and woman in the street. In October 1960, a licensing agreement was drawn up allowing Raleigh to make the new, small-wheeled, unisex, dual-suspension Moulton bicycle. Production was scheduled to commence in November 1961 but in September, Raleigh imposed a moratorium: Leslie Roberts, Raleigh’s incoming managing director, did not believe the Moulton could yield a reasonable profit.

Alex Moulton therefore built his own factory and started delivering Moultons to the trade in March 1963. The new machine was an immediate success, and most production had to be farmed out to Fisher & Ludlow, a subsidiary of the British Motor Corporation.

In March 1964, Raleigh showed Moulton the prototype RSW16: an unsprung small-wheeled shopping bike that was well equipped, more robust and cheaper than the Moulton. It was unclear whether the RSW breached Moulton’s patents and in June 1964 Raleigh sought a production licence for the Moulton bicycle. Alex Moulton was prepared to licence an unsprung F-frame small-wheeler, provided the genuine Moulton could be sold through Raleigh dealers. Negotiations continued into the autumn of 1964 and included the possibility of Raleigh buying the Moulton cycle operation outright, or Raleigh buying Moulton bicycles badged as Raleighs, or Raleigh taking over Moulton’s marketing. None of these options came to fruition.

By mid 1965, Moulton was producing more than 1,000 units a week. The new cycle, and the interest it created in cycling as a stylish, modern and practical mode of transport, had arrested the steep post-war decline in UK cycle sales. However, Raleigh was seeing little benefit, except from the Sturmey-Archer hubs it sold to Moulton. Indeed, since the TI take-over, Raleigh’s sales had dropped by a staggering 49%. In addition, other cycle makers such as Dawes and Royal Enfield were introducing small-wheelers to cash in on the Moulton boom. Therefore, in July 1965, Raleigh launched the RSW16 with an unprecedented £100,000 of publicity (= more than £1m today).

The RSW16 proved commercially successful, going into MkII and MkIII versions and selling more than 100,000 units in its nine-year production run. Scaled-down juvenile versions, such as the RSW14, also sold well. However, the Wisp, a moped based on the RSW16 and launched in spring 1967, proved a commercial failure.

Launch of the RSW sparked a trade war between Raleigh and Moulton. By 1967, both were suffering. Despite a 40% increase in sales since launch of the RSW16, Raleigh’s profits for the previous year were down 8% and Moulton was losing money unsustainably. In late July 1967, Moulton Bicycles Limited was bought by Raleigh, who retained Alex Moulton as a consultant.

In 1968, but with relatively little publicity, Raleigh introduced the Twenty. This long-lived H-frame small-wheeler was destined to become for a while the company’s biggest selling model and remained in production for some 16 years. At one time or another, it was sold under almost every brand name owned by Raleigh.

1888 – Frank Bowden purchases the Woodhead/Angois/Ellis bicycle workshop on Raleigh Street and renames it the Raleigh Cycle Company. At this point there are about a dozen employees and production is three high-wheelers a week.

Note that the serial number information below is fragmentary and incomplete, and many bikes have proven to be much newer than the serial numbers would suggest. It appears that Raleigh recycled many of the older serial numbers in later years, so there are lots of bikes from the 60s and 70s that have serial numbers that would suggest much greater age.

1888-1925

Prior to 1925, genuine Raleighs (not necessarily brand names made by Raleigh) had a straightforward numerical frame number. Early years have been estimated by the Company. (Info from the Nottinghamshire Archives)

Note that the serial number information below is fragmentary and incomplete, and many bikes have proven to be much newer than the serial numbers would suggest. It appears that Raleigh recycled many of the older serial numbers in later years, so there are lots of bikes from the 60s and 70s that have serial numbers that would suggest much greater age.

Between 1925 and the cessation of cycle production during the Second World War, letters prefixed or suffixed the running frame number although no indication is given of the starting point of the numbers. They seem to reflect only the number of machines produced whilst each letter was in use. All dating would therefore be approximate. (Info from the Nottinghamshire Archives)

A new numbering system was introduced in 1955, though this ran concurrently with the old one for two years. The new system involved a second running letter, added to the first, which began at the start of the alphabet.

Note: Some of the mid-60’s straight guage 531 frames had serial numbers starting with a single letter which was towards the end of the alphabet.

1967 – 1973

Yet another number system was introduced in 1966. This new system applied to the high-end (i.e. Reynolds 531) frames, and involved the placing of a character at the beginning of the serial number. The character began at the start of the alphabet, and indicated year of manufacture. Detail about the numerals that follow the alphabet are sketchy, and are presumably sequential serial numbers of some kind.

1966: A, followed by four numerals
1967: B, followed by four numerals
1968: C, followed by four numerals
1969: D, followed by four numerals
1970: E, followed by four numerals
1971: F, followed by four numerals
1972: G, followed by four numerals
1973: H, followed by four numerals

Note: While this numbering scheme is generally true, there may have been some crossover use of letters at the beginning/end of each year (e.g. a “G” serial number may have been built into a bike in 1973, but the frame may have been built in 1972).